I agree with virtually everything that you say, except that I do not think your alternative proposal of MFE should stand for Merit, Fairness and Equality. It should stand for Merit, Fairness and Equal Process.
When it comes to hiring, firing and promotions, by definition, one person comes out ahead of the others, so it cannot be called equality. The term “equality” can easily be exploited by DEI to overturn your entire proposal. What we need is for everyone to go through the same process and that process is a good faith attempt to judge based on merit (I.e. past achievements that are relevant to the job in question). That is very different from Equality.
Regarding legacy admissions, I thought it was a bit more complicated, since this system ends up attracting enough cash to private universities to enable a number of other students to attend on scholarships.
Also, I'm not sure why it should be the universities' responsibility to improve neighborhood schools..
As of two weeks ago, we now have DEIB (Belonging). I found the “literature” stating that Belonging was equal to the sum of D, I, and E, but now it is an independent variable. Another letter or two and they will have to go with a “+” sign. I am sure most people passionate about HxSTEM feel utmost belonging when it comes to the most important diversity that should be practiced on campus - the diversity of viewpoints.
I agree with nearly everything this article says with one major exception. Athletic admissions should NOT be considered in the same category as "legacy" admissions and are in fact merit based. First, the article, likely by how the sentence was written, incorrectly states that athletic admissions favor white applicants. The greatest benefit from athletic admissions vis a vis regular admissions accrues to African Americans who likely would NOT be competitive to enter the universities in question with scholarships purely on academic merits. Unlike legacy or DEI admissions which are based on either your family connections or race/gender etc. none of which are based in merit, student athletes are admitted precisely BECAUSE of their athletic talent. It is the probably the purest example of merit based admission in academia. Now, one could argue that athletics should not be part of university life, but the reality is that athletics has always been a part of a classical education and our society would probably benefit of the average student had more athletic course requirements placed upon them, not less. College athletes must demonstrate merit in the tasks for which they were recruited while also performing adequately in their course work. Most student athletes are forced to maintain schedules that their non-athlete peers would NOT be able to sustain without major problems to their academic performance. While universities provide some academic support to their athletes (some even crossing the line into academic misconduct) overall, these do not compensate for the added physical and time commitments placed on student athletes. Given the revenue and marketing services that student athletes bring to their universities, they are more than pulling their weight based on the merit of the skills they bring to the court, field or ice. I would encourage faculty to actually learn more about the lives of student athletes before casting judgement against them.
The Ivies are basically ignoring the Supreme Court decision. State legislatures have banned diversity statements in some states, and universities are just rebranding them as "service statements", or activist faculty are just quietly expecting applicants to say the right things about diversity in their teaching statements without being told to do so.
As to 7/23, this didn't reveal "the terrible reality of DEI". It just spooked Jewish Americans when they realized they're considered white devils. They're responding by seeking their own DEI carve-outs in the form of special prohibitions on antisemitism. Anti-white rhetoric? Crickets.
Legislative half-measures aren't going to do anything. There are too many ideologues in the system and they're dug in everywhere. As to the rest of it:
>Ctl-F 'white'
>One hit
"Crucially, this would mean an end to legacy and athletic admission advantages, which significantly favor white applicants, in addition to those based on group membership."
The one time you mention the primary targets of DEI, it's to suggest a policy that would reduce white representation.
When the people pushing back against DEI from inside the system are so milquetoast, it's no surprise that the diversity zampolit rule without meaningful opposition.
Last sentences of the essay: "American universities are diverse not because of DEI, but because they have been extremely competitive at attracting talent from all over the world. Ninety years ago Germany had the best universities in the world. [End with "Now the USA does." instead of the following...] Then an ideological regime obsessed with race came to power and drove many of the best scholars out, gutting the faculties and leading to sustained decay that German universities never fully recovered from. We should view this as a warning of the consequences of viewing group membership as more important than merit, and correct our course before it is too late."
LOL back atcha. Good one! In the land of ad hominems ... the one ad hominem is as good as any other ad hominem. McCullough actually reads Peter Boghossian. So he surely knows, then, that Portland State can't be much of a University. But maybe he doesn't believe Peter. Who knows (who cares).
Dorian, I saw your reference to 10/7 in the intro to your reprinting of your essay and I thought, "there he goes again." I think the issue, succinctly put, is that by trying to emphasize the seriousness of the issue you're writing about, in each case you reference a much more serious historical event, and it detracts from your position because it distracts and it makes the reader think that you're lacking perspective. The latter is an error of the reader/commentator because from your cited reference (and other writing you made contemporaneously with the Newsweek article) it seemed clear to me that you did have a learned perspective, but I can tell you that I had heard others in 2021 characterize your essay simplistically as "he compared DEI programs to the Nazi's behavior." One can assign blame for an essay, if one wishes to assign blame, to the reader or the writer or some combination of both. Again, I think the essay would have been less vulnerable to such criticism if it had stopped sooner and didn't advance to the Nazi comparison.
Now the USA does!!! A Platonist disagreed with you in 1987 in the person of Allan Bloom who wrote The Closing of the American Mind. 10 years before that an Aristotelian, Mortimer Jerome Adler [Aristotle For Everybody ... 10 Philosophical Mistakes etc. etc.] indicated that American University level "scholars" had become incapable of doing much more than leveling incomprehensible Academic "cant" at each other --- unintelligible to normal English speakers. For God's sake, man! You are almost 50 years "out of touch" with what is going on in other parts of American Universities. My bet is that you must have a grant to do Astronomy, access to a radio telescope and think of (or pay attention to) almost nothing other than radio waves from the nebulae out there. Lucky you --- but earth is calling. WAKE UP!
Since you are a banker, then loan them some money to buy the books necessary to do better than white people whose attention spans are no "longer" than any 1 minute TIC TOC clip at this present time. If you can convince them to ACT long enough to read entire books they will own all universities in less than 20 years. One generation. Good luck taking that sort of affirmative action on behalf of blacks to the bank (er banker if you will)!
So tell me AA, why blacks did far better academically under the policies that preceded Affirmative Action? Do you not believe Thomas Sowell and his studies? Do you reject the numerous statements of Malcolm X on this topic?
Do you want African Americans to thrive or not? Or do you want to keep them "on the plantation"?
I am BIPOC, so according to "your rules", you are not allowed to disagree with me ABOUT ANYTHING. So...be careful if you choose to respond.
I agree with virtually everything that you say, except that I do not think your alternative proposal of MFE should stand for Merit, Fairness and Equality. It should stand for Merit, Fairness and Equal Process.
When it comes to hiring, firing and promotions, by definition, one person comes out ahead of the others, so it cannot be called equality. The term “equality” can easily be exploited by DEI to overturn your entire proposal. What we need is for everyone to go through the same process and that process is a good faith attempt to judge based on merit (I.e. past achievements that are relevant to the job in question). That is very different from Equality.
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/the-merit-of-merit-part-1
Dear Dorian,
You are more than vindicated. You and Ivan are heroes!
Thank you for seeing the problem and fighting for the solution.
Thanks,
randy
Absolutely right. DEI is utterly toxic.
Cheers!
It's impressive that you wrote this in 2021.
Regarding legacy admissions, I thought it was a bit more complicated, since this system ends up attracting enough cash to private universities to enable a number of other students to attend on scholarships.
Also, I'm not sure why it should be the universities' responsibility to improve neighborhood schools..
Well summarized, Dorian.
As of two weeks ago, we now have DEIB (Belonging). I found the “literature” stating that Belonging was equal to the sum of D, I, and E, but now it is an independent variable. Another letter or two and they will have to go with a “+” sign. I am sure most people passionate about HxSTEM feel utmost belonging when it comes to the most important diversity that should be practiced on campus - the diversity of viewpoints.
I agree with nearly everything this article says with one major exception. Athletic admissions should NOT be considered in the same category as "legacy" admissions and are in fact merit based. First, the article, likely by how the sentence was written, incorrectly states that athletic admissions favor white applicants. The greatest benefit from athletic admissions vis a vis regular admissions accrues to African Americans who likely would NOT be competitive to enter the universities in question with scholarships purely on academic merits. Unlike legacy or DEI admissions which are based on either your family connections or race/gender etc. none of which are based in merit, student athletes are admitted precisely BECAUSE of their athletic talent. It is the probably the purest example of merit based admission in academia. Now, one could argue that athletics should not be part of university life, but the reality is that athletics has always been a part of a classical education and our society would probably benefit of the average student had more athletic course requirements placed upon them, not less. College athletes must demonstrate merit in the tasks for which they were recruited while also performing adequately in their course work. Most student athletes are forced to maintain schedules that their non-athlete peers would NOT be able to sustain without major problems to their academic performance. While universities provide some academic support to their athletes (some even crossing the line into academic misconduct) overall, these do not compensate for the added physical and time commitments placed on student athletes. Given the revenue and marketing services that student athletes bring to their universities, they are more than pulling their weight based on the merit of the skills they bring to the court, field or ice. I would encourage faculty to actually learn more about the lives of student athletes before casting judgement against them.
The Ivies are basically ignoring the Supreme Court decision. State legislatures have banned diversity statements in some states, and universities are just rebranding them as "service statements", or activist faculty are just quietly expecting applicants to say the right things about diversity in their teaching statements without being told to do so.
As to 7/23, this didn't reveal "the terrible reality of DEI". It just spooked Jewish Americans when they realized they're considered white devils. They're responding by seeking their own DEI carve-outs in the form of special prohibitions on antisemitism. Anti-white rhetoric? Crickets.
Legislative half-measures aren't going to do anything. There are too many ideologues in the system and they're dug in everywhere. As to the rest of it:
>Ctl-F 'white'
>One hit
"Crucially, this would mean an end to legacy and athletic admission advantages, which significantly favor white applicants, in addition to those based on group membership."
The one time you mention the primary targets of DEI, it's to suggest a policy that would reduce white representation.
When the people pushing back against DEI from inside the system are so milquetoast, it's no surprise that the diversity zampolit rule without meaningful opposition.
Dorian's essay succumbed to Godwin's law: the essay went on too long by half a paragraph. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law#/media/File:Godwin's_law_t-shirt_at_Rally_to_restore_sanity,_2010.jpg
Last sentences of the essay: "American universities are diverse not because of DEI, but because they have been extremely competitive at attracting talent from all over the world. Ninety years ago Germany had the best universities in the world. [End with "Now the USA does." instead of the following...] Then an ideological regime obsessed with race came to power and drove many of the best scholars out, gutting the faculties and leading to sustained decay that German universities never fully recovered from. We should view this as a warning of the consequences of viewing group membership as more important than merit, and correct our course before it is too late."
Its mind-boggling that you could think that after 10/7.
Galaxies are boggling his mind --- Maybe. Maybe not. Could be that dark matter has darkened his mind.
McCullough is a propagandist. A poor one.
And you are an ad hominest. And there is no such thing as a "good" one!
LOL back atcha. Good one! In the land of ad hominems ... the one ad hominem is as good as any other ad hominem. McCullough actually reads Peter Boghossian. So he surely knows, then, that Portland State can't be much of a University. But maybe he doesn't believe Peter. Who knows (who cares).
Dorian, I saw your reference to 10/7 in the intro to your reprinting of your essay and I thought, "there he goes again." I think the issue, succinctly put, is that by trying to emphasize the seriousness of the issue you're writing about, in each case you reference a much more serious historical event, and it detracts from your position because it distracts and it makes the reader think that you're lacking perspective. The latter is an error of the reader/commentator because from your cited reference (and other writing you made contemporaneously with the Newsweek article) it seemed clear to me that you did have a learned perspective, but I can tell you that I had heard others in 2021 characterize your essay simplistically as "he compared DEI programs to the Nazi's behavior." One can assign blame for an essay, if one wishes to assign blame, to the reader or the writer or some combination of both. Again, I think the essay would have been less vulnerable to such criticism if it had stopped sooner and didn't advance to the Nazi comparison.
Now the USA does!!! A Platonist disagreed with you in 1987 in the person of Allan Bloom who wrote The Closing of the American Mind. 10 years before that an Aristotelian, Mortimer Jerome Adler [Aristotle For Everybody ... 10 Philosophical Mistakes etc. etc.] indicated that American University level "scholars" had become incapable of doing much more than leveling incomprehensible Academic "cant" at each other --- unintelligible to normal English speakers. For God's sake, man! You are almost 50 years "out of touch" with what is going on in other parts of American Universities. My bet is that you must have a grant to do Astronomy, access to a radio telescope and think of (or pay attention to) almost nothing other than radio waves from the nebulae out there. Lucky you --- but earth is calling. WAKE UP!
Take me off your stuff. I am for affirmative action for blacks
>in favor of affirmative action
>can't figure out how to unsubscribe on her own
Since you are a banker, then loan them some money to buy the books necessary to do better than white people whose attention spans are no "longer" than any 1 minute TIC TOC clip at this present time. If you can convince them to ACT long enough to read entire books they will own all universities in less than 20 years. One generation. Good luck taking that sort of affirmative action on behalf of blacks to the bank (er banker if you will)!
So tell me AA, why blacks did far better academically under the policies that preceded Affirmative Action? Do you not believe Thomas Sowell and his studies? Do you reject the numerous statements of Malcolm X on this topic?
Do you want African Americans to thrive or not? Or do you want to keep them "on the plantation"?
I am BIPOC, so according to "your rules", you are not allowed to disagree with me ABOUT ANYTHING. So...be careful if you choose to respond.